Sometimes you just need a little bit of lighter news, and since today is Hump Day, it seems appropriate to bring forth a story about a camel beauty contest, held annually in Saudi Arabia. Camel racing and breeding have long been popular hobbies among royalty in that part of the world, even if the Saudi desert isn't exactly Camelot. 

In recent years, though, the camel beauty pageant organizers have had issues with cheating. Yes, really.

Saudi authorities have carried out their biggest crackdown on camel beauty contestants, disqualifying more than 40 “enhanced” camels from the annual pageant, according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency.

The camels disqualified in the competition, at the King Abdulaziz camel festival, were judged to have received Botox injections and other artificial touch-ups.

The popular festival, which started [in Dec. 2021], invites the breeders of the most beautiful camels to compete for about $66m in prize money.

Botox injections, facelifts and other cosmetic alterations to make the camels more attractive are strictly prohibited. Jurors decide the winner based on the shape of the animals’ heads, necks, humps, dress, and postures.

The cheaters have obviously gone to great lengths to camelflage their cheating, although it's been said that the use of Botox and other alterations can have the effect of rendering the animals unable to walk. This, of course, exposes the cheating when the owner, to move the beast, has to call for a camel tow.

Apparently, there is considerable hump and glory in owning a winning camel. But to get to oasis side of this controversy will take some strict action on the part of the show's organizers. I'm unaware of what is considered beautiful for camels (and if you want to know the truth, I'm happy to remain that way). But there are standards.

This year, the authorities discovered dozens of breeders had stretched out the lips and noses of camels, used hormones to boost the animals’ muscles, injected heads and lips with Botox to make them bigger, inflated body parts with rubber bands, and used fillers to relax their faces.

Add that to your list of "questions you really didn't need to have answered."

Rumor has it the next, expected winner is a beast named Humphrey.

Just in case that didn't get your goat, take a look at this.

The goat beauty pageant, held in Saudi Arabia, prizes billies known as the Damascus goat, also known in the internets as the 'World's Ugliest Animals.' And though we do not like calling our four-legged pals ugly, this goat breed has some very unusual characteristics.

The Damascus goat is generally used for milk production but also performs well in leather and meat production. What's shocking about these weird animals is the difference between their looks when they're young and when they grow up. What seems to be incredibly cute goats with very long ears later turns into a monstrosity with bulging noses that could scare many people.

It seems these contests have been going on since I was a kid. While I can sympathize with these goats starting out cute and ending up with a face for radio, as that kind of mirrors my own cosmetic progress through life, it's still too baaad. At least there doesn't seem to be any cheating; it seems that the dishonest sorts among camel beauty contestants aren't butting into the goat business, likely because ugliness is the expected outcome. But then, camels are pretty ugly, too; at least to my untrained eye. Perhaps the goat contest simply hasn't had the cheaters horning in yet.

One of the 2023 goat beauty pageant entries is rumored to be a notoriously lazy beast named Billy Idle.

This seems appropriate.